


The Ants Weigh More Than the Elephants

by RatherCharmingVermin



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Emotional Support, F/F, Flashbacks, Post-Canon, old ladies date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2019-01-09 22:44:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12285816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RatherCharmingVermin/pseuds/RatherCharmingVermin
Summary: Lup crashes back into Lucretia's life the only way she possibly could: on a bike, and screaming.





	The Ants Weigh More Than the Elephants

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alliterate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alliterate/gifts).



“Hey, gal pal! Lup here. I noticed, we uh, we never got around to just, hanging like we used to do. I mean, six months since we got the Hunger off our backs: this is getting ridiculous. It’s either you repackaging your whole B.O.B deal, or me being on reaper duty and crashing the moment I get time off, and you know, I reckon we gotta start making time. So what say you we go paint the town? Tonight?”  
  
Lucretia stutters a moment, gawking at her Stone of Farspeech as she searches for her response. This shouldn’t have caught her off guard. After all, it’s probably nothing. In all likelihood, conversation won’t stir much crazier than “How’s work been?” and “Wow, this weather, huh”, and that’ll be for the better. Then again, Lup has a tendency towards unpredictably timed fits of bravery. Oh, some things she can be terribly self-deceptive about, but in other cases, she doesn’t address the elephant in the room so much as take it for a joyride, and there are so many elephants where they’re both concerned, and oh, Lucretia is not ready for this whole stampede.  
  
Still.  
  
“Um, well, that does sound lovely, Lup. Quick question: how did you get this frequency? I know I wouldn’t have given it to Taa-”  
  
“Of course it sounds lovely, it’s me, isn’t it? Alright, join me down in Neverwinter, 7PM. Practical gear. No tardiness, you know my policy on that.”  
  
“Y-” The hum of air friction from the other side stops dead, leaving a faltering smile on Lucretia’s lips. Yes, she does know her policy on that.

 

* * *

  _Cycle 13 - Lucretia shifted awkwardly between two planes of a revolving temple floor as she waited five, fifteen, thirty minutes for Lup in front of the Qvartz Offices, or so the sundial on the balcony told her. This appointment with the archangel should’ve granted them permission to excavate the courtyard in the abandoned cuprite temple south of Haverron. If Lup had been there. Lucretia was so used to being the hanger-on on the Star Blaster. Of course, one of maybe three times Davenport entrusted her with this kind of a responsibility, someone had to come along - or not, rather - and ruin it for her._

_Eventually, Lup did come strolling her way - sliding rather. She didn’t even look up from her hand mirror and kept drawing a pattern on her cheekbone as the rotating disk took her towards Lucretia. ‘Wonder which it is today?’ she jeered silently. ‘Rose vines or a circuit board?’_  
  
_“Sup, Lucy?” Lup said, stepping off the moving platform onto the stoop of Archangel Kostya’s office, still with her eyes riveted to her hand mirror as she painted. “So, we getting into that temple or what?”_  
  
_“No?” Lucretia responded, too bewildered to correct her on the unwelcome nickname. “We’re supposed to be having that appointment right now. Where were you?”_  
  
_“Slept in. It’s okay, we’ve still got ten minutes.”_  
  
_Was it a double-helix? It definitely looked like a double-helix, and she’d definitely spent her whole afternoon wiping it off and starting over again: the ink has seeped into the pores of her bronze cheek._  
  
_“Ten minutes? Lup... it’s not that hard to read a sundial. I can show you if you-”_  
  
_“I don’t care how hard it is, you won’t catch me at that nerd shit. Call it me bringing your rarity value up by proxy. I am making you look good. Treasure it, you won’t get to say that too often.” She snapped the mirror closed and shoved it into her red handbag, looking Lucretia in the face at last. “Well, are we going?”_  
  
_As she walked right past her, Lucretia thought the double-helix might actually have been a twisting pile of donuts._

* * *

 

 

Lup greets her on a dirt road on the outskirts of Neverwinter, one bicycle under her butt and another proffered by the handle towards Lucretia.  
  
“You know, when you said painting the town, this isn’t really what I had in mind.”  
  
“These don’t maintain themselves, baby,” Lup replies, raising her right leg over the handlebars. It is, indeed, a most excellently curated leg, but Lucretia tries not to linger on its evaluation too long.  
  
“You’re lucky I even have the knees for this,” she says, taking the larger blue bike and climbing onto it.  
  
“Call it a test of your vigor. I gotta know if you can go the distance, old lady.”  
  
Lup glances aside, scouting out Lucretia’s reaction briefly before averting her eyes, but she doesn’t need to worry: Lucretia is grinning.  
  
“Oh, I can go.”  
  
While twenty years is an awful lot of time to lose, she enjoys having this claim to maturity she’s earned twice over. Not to mention, the ravages of time have kindly carved the acneic personality-free blob she once was into something more distinguished. It’s nothing to mourn: most people have one youth. Lucretia got to multiply hers by four, and kept on living.  
Lup pushes down on the pedal, and rides towards the top of the incoming downward slope.  
  
“I never really knew you to be an outdoor kind of gal,” Lucretia comments. From behind she sees Lup shrug.  
  
“Guess you’re not the only one getting old.” Then she kicks the earth, and rolls down the hill.

 

* * *

  _“I just can’t knowingly allow another living being to come to harm. Part of the whole angel thing, ya know - oh, thanks Phil,” Archangel Kostya said, sipping raspberry flavoured beer from the zombie glass just handed him - and really, that was where the problems started, wasn’t it? Who the hell drinks beer from a zombie glass? Lucretia’s hands were a little sweaty, because Archangel Kostya was looking away from her to some asshole talking to him about rebranding the business - I really think we need a fresh coat of paint if we’re going to seem relevant, and I mean the rotating disks have got to go - and Lup was no help cos she was testing out mimosas at the bar. Lucretia laced her fingers together in quest for a little stability._  
  
_“The thing is sir, and I don’t think it’s an overstatement, that we are professionals trained exactly for this type of situation-”_  
  
_Kostya coughed, choking on his beer a little, and there’s something weird about a dude with steel skin still being able to cough._  
  
_“Lev, excuse me just one second.” He puts his free hand on his heart, the very image of hurt. “Miss Louisa, are you_ **lying to an angel** right now?”  
  
_“Uh-”_  
  
_“It’s another angel thing. Most visitors are surprised. Would you mind telling me what exactly your qualifications are?”_  
  
_Lucretia froze, scratching at the ground with her shoe, because really, what were her qualifications? And she could feel herself shrink as he leaned towards her, gauging her reaction. This was exactly why he was telling her no, and exactly why Davenport hadn’t given her more assignments. They needed people of action, not glorified wallflowers._  
  
_“That’s what I thought,” Kostya snapped._  
  
_“Hey, chrome dome,” Lup called from the bar, swiveling her stool around in an elegant motion. “You wanna talk about qualifications? We’ve been hopping planes for ten years now. I guess we gotta look pretty squishy to folks like you, but we’ve been dealing with environments that want us dead for a long run, and somehow, we’re here with a whole crew. Including Lu-cre-tia. Lucretia, not Louisa, get it right. Guessin’ names aren’t an angel thing. And while we’re at it, hey class! Why don’t we talk about Archangel Kostya’s last ten years, and what those went to? How does that sound?”_  
  
_Kostya’s eyes darted towards his guests, who had all stopped dead in the middle of what they were doing. Some dickhole turned off the music. What a great guy._  
  
_“Well,” the archangel mumbled. “I guess… something, something… wrongdoers… final demise… Chronos provides.”_  
  
_“I’m glad we agree,” Lup chirped, hopping down from the stool and putting an arm around Lucretia’s shoulders, to which Lucretia was utterly indifferent, mhm, absolutely. “Well, I guess we’ll head back to the ship, and tell people the mission is a-go.”_  
  
_“Thank you for your cooperation,” Lucretia breathed out, as Lup pulled her away from the ‘office’. After a slow walk back - rotating disks were the worst and Lucretia had never felt this sick in her life - Lup stopped her in front of the ship._  
  
_“You look down.”_  
  
_“I’m not. Thank you, actually, for backing me up.”_  
  
_“Eh, it’s my mission too. Just remember, this is some pretty badass shit you’re a part of. No one else but us knows what we know. If anybody tries to get all lordy-think-of-the-greater-good on you, keep that in mind.”_  
  
_Then, the footbridge and shutters went down. Lup booped Lucretia’s unsuspecting nose, before striding up to Taako who was waiting at the door, and Barry behind him. Lucretia tarried behind. Her face was hot and she was a little self conscious that no one had waited for her, but that feeling died down pretty quickly when Magnus handed her a bowl of fruit salad they’d saved for her._

* * *

 

 

“Hey geniuses!” Lup screams. “You guys ever hear of single file?”  
  
Before them was a mass of about thirty joggers in matching fluorescent orange tank tops, lead by a cockatoo kenku with leg warmers. Their bicycle ride had slowed until they’d had to put a foot to the ground and stop completely before this wall of health conscious citizens.  
  
“Hey idiots!” the kenku answers. “You guys ever hear of cycling lanes?”  
  
“We’re in a forest, that doesn’t even make sense,” Lucretia comments under her breath.  
  
A gnome shakes his fist at her.  
  
“Who you calling dense, old lady?”  
  
“You really gonna start calling people names, fu-” Lup begins to say, rising from her bike, but Lucretia raises her hand in a pacifying gesture:  
  
“Listen. We are asking you for a straightforward service - namely repositioning yourselves two steps to the right in order to allow our forward progress - and in exchange, I will not have your municipality request mid-year medical certificate from any and all members of sport related organisations in Neverwinter.”  
  
There’s a collective groan from the joggers, who all look to the cockatoo kenku. He considers this with a hand rubbing his chin, before sighing.  
  
“Come on guys, it ain’t worth the trouble.”  
  
And before they’ve finished moving onto the grass, Lup flashes past them. Lucretia has a bit of a side stitch by the time she catches up.  
  
“You wouldn’t have handled people like that before,” Lup notes, with breath as easy as if she were lounging on a chair. Lucretia’s breath is quite a bit more strained when she answers:  
  
“Well, if there’s one thing handling an organisation will teach you-”  
  
“It’s to be a people person.”  
  
“Oh nah. On the inside, I’m still terrified of people.” She’s still terrified of Lup, if she’s honest. “No, what I learned is that people might be petty, but they’re way more lazy.”

 

* * *

  _Cycle 21 - It was maybe the third time of the year Lucretia had actually put her bathing suit on - guess mom was right about maybe needing it - and headed out to the beach instead of proofreading twenty years worth of chronicles. It was more of an ordeal than she thought it’d be. Beyond having a huge guilty conscience over taking a break, Lucretia spent an alarming proportion of beach time kind of psyching herself up into asking Lup to put sunscreen on her back. It was a fairly platonic course of action, but still, one that said “I am comfortable with proximity and contact with other people in general, and with you in particular”, something that Lucretia had trouble expressing in day-to-day life, and seemed like a step. Step to what though?_

_No matter. Lup beat her to that question. And when she did, Lucretia cried out: “Oh, dang, think I left the oven on,” and ran back inside. Then, Lup jump-grappled her on the way up the bridge for messing with her kitchen. A positive experience all in all._

_Perhaps it isn’t surprising that it took a little liquid courage for Lucretia to collapse next to/onto Lup one evening, as the campfire kept them warm while they sat listening to the ocean.  
_  
_“See, I’m starting to think you’ve got the right idea staying on the ship the whole time. Your hair’s still nice, look at mine. Straw! I’m all salted out.”  
_  
_She took a strand and offered it.  
_  
_“Here, touch it.”  
_  
_Lucretia rubbed the strand between her fingers, head buzzing, and hummed as she nestled against Lup’s shoulder.  
_  
_“Still pretty.”  
_  
_“Aw. You’re too cute, Lucretia.” Not Lucy. Lucretia. Somehow it meant a lot at that moment.  
_  
_They collapsed against each other as they fell asleep. Lup woke up first, which Lucretia knew, because she could feel Lup’s fingers absentmindedly stroking her palm, then the back of her hand. As Lucretia blinked back into the real world, she saw Lup’s high bridged nose, the slight bags under her eyes she usually had concealed, and the dark brown freckles on her forehead. Also, the smile spreading across her face.  
_  
_“You really are way cute,” she said, before pressing a kiss to Lucretia’s lips. Lucretia sort of let it happen - not her proudest hour, but liquid courage could only last so long - but she was combusting on the inside and by the time she could muster any outward reaction, Lup’s expression had turned vexed, and she sauntered back to the ship, empty bottle of angelic raspberry beer in hand._

* * *

 

“Woah. Woah, woah, woah, woah,” Lucretia asks, holding her hand up in a ‘stop’ motion, as she bends, grasping her side. “Do you mind if we stop, just a little while?”  
“Sure thing,” Lup replies, concern in her expression. “I mean, I know I called this a test of your vigor and athletic might and whatnot, but you know you don’t actually have to take it? We could do something else.”  
  
“Come on, Lup, don’t patronize me. I’m perfectly capable of a minor exercise like this, I simply haven’t gotten used to work-out breathing again.”  
  
“I noticed,” Lup says with a smirk, taking her arm to help her off her bike, and giving her bicep a little squeeze. “Though you do still have that old muscle tone, if you don’t mind me saying.”  
  
Lucretia chuckles, thankful that she doesn’t blush easy, and sets down her bicycle before they sit on the grass to catch their breaths.  
  
“Definitely don’t mind you saying.”  
  
“Always been kinda tough, toeing the line. Figuring out exactly what it is that you mind, or don’t,” Lup says, picking at grass, not exactly looking at Lucretia’s face. No, Lucretia realizes, she’s looking at her lips, and suddenly the stampede is starting.  
  
“Actually, changed my mind. My side hurts real bad. Can we switch to a more traditional town painting, if that’s alright with you?”

 

* * *

  _Cycle 48 - They walked out of the symposium together, hand in hand, and Lucretia smiled and joked about it with the others, but that night, she cried into her pillow. She had to shriek at herself for being this much of a coward, for not taking the connection that was offered to her, just like she’d let every other opportunity in her life slip by. Now she had to watch Lup have that connection with someone else, brave enough to take it._

* * *

 

 “Nuh-uh. It’s gotta be an outdoor table.”

  
“Are you sure?” the waiter asks, frowning. “It’s getting kind of chilly. We have a table by the window if you want a view.”  
  
“I know what I’m about,” Lup announces as she sets herself down on the plastic chair, bathed in orange light from within the bar. This isn’t Lucretia’s preference, her robe fits a little too loose and the breeze is making her shiver, but it seems important to Lup. Lup orders a glass of tequila, and Lucretia orders the hottest possible cup of earl grey they can deliver because she’s not sure alcohol can deliver the warmth she’s looking for right now.  
  
“I don’t-” Lup begins, and she sort of closes in on herself, bringing her snifter close to her chest. “I don’t like being in little tiny spaces like that.”  
  
“Not since the Umbra Staff?”  
  
“Correct.”  
  
Lucretia, in an act of bravery that her younger self would’ve considered impossible, puts her hand on Lup’s wrist.  
  
“I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like, Lup. I wish I’d only invested that place more, I mean, the signs were there, if I’d really combed it-”  
  
Lup’s hand twitches a little, like she’s not comfortable with this sympathy.  
  
“You did what you could. More than I did, for sure. And one way or the other, it’s done now. I never have to look at that place again, because guess what: it’s snapped to hell. Just don’t mind me. I just need to get over my shit. And don’t give me that ‘You’re allowed to feel what you feel’ crap. Sure, I’m allowed to feel it. Don’t mean it’s useful to me.”  
  
“I’m not gonna give you advice. I just want you to know that I’ll listen, if you need to talk things out.”  
  
“Oho,” she laughs, somewhat sardonically, slapping her hands against the table. “Oh man are you gonna regret offering that particular service. You ready for this?”  
  
Lucretia nods, and her stomach ties into knots because Lup’s eyes are getting red.  
  
“Barry and I, uh, parted ways.”  
  
At once, Lucretia is tempted to take the tequila away.  
  
“Oh. Lup… when?”  
  
“About two weeks ago. Didn’t wanna upset anyone, so we uh, kept it off radar. It wasn’t anything he did, or I did - well, maybe it was something I did. It’s just… when you’ve been in sync as long as we have, a ten year long desync can be pretty brutal.” And she bursts into tears.  
  
Lucretia makes the executive decision that they need to leave before Lup has the opportunity to ask for a refill, and they take the mourning party to Lup’s distinctly half-empty living room in the astral plane. She tells her tales of uncertainty, leading to bigger and bigger silences, of not knowing how to live around each other and in each other’s socks and in each other’s beds in the way that once seemed natural, of how idealizing what you used to have, slowly but surely transforms what you have now into something pale and insipid. And when Lucretia can’t hold her hand anymore, she makes sure she’s tucked into bed with a pack of tissues on her nightstand. Before she can leave the room, Lup reaches for her hand, pulling her down in order to touch her hand to the side of Lucretia’s face. It passes over her brow, and the new lines that are found there, with fondness and fascination.  
  
“Hey. Today… started out fun. We should try to do that again, and maybe keep it fun the whole way through next time.”  
  
Lucretia answers with a tender smile.  
  
“I’d like that a lot.”  
  
Lup grins back wearily, before slipping an eye mask on and turning away.  
  
When Lucretia returns to the living room, she realizes she’s probably stuck there for the night, because she can’t shift back to the Material Plane, which is bad. Sleeping on Lup’s sofa and waiting for her to wake up, knowing she’s okay and is gonna be okay?

That sounds pretty good.

**Author's Note:**

> I've never worked with this kind of structure before. I hope it worked out!


End file.
